Strategies
· Oral and silent reading fluency # Repeated readings of a leveled reader is an intervention strategy for children struggling with fluency. On Monday, a child would take the book home with an audio recording of the story. She/he would listen to the book first and follow along. As the week goes on, the child would be tasked with independently reading the story (with a teacher check in the next day), and then reading the story aloud to a parent or sibling. The child is practicing decoding the same story multiple times, allowing their oral reading skills to increase as the focus more on the story than making the letter sounds. # A great strategy for children to take responsibility for their silent reading is to keep a reading log. The child would fill out the log for each book read in the classroom library, and be accountable for keeping up with it. Giving students a task while silent reading leads to more success; they have to have something to show for their reading! Teacher check ins are key for both of these strategies. Without teacher monitoring, both strategies are pointless. · Reading comprehension # Story framing helps children understand the flow of a story and gives them a framework to understand what they are reading. Flow charts illustrate for a student how events in the story relate, assisting in comprehension. Kid friendly graphic organizers also provide a task for reading, making independent reading less intimidating for students. # Question Answer Relationships (QARs) give a student strategies to think about information sources available to think about the text. Some answers are found right there in the text, others are think-and-search, and some answers come from the reader. This gives students a framework to put together what they have read and what they already know. They can then identify with sticky notes or write it next to their answer what QAR strategy they used. This also presents a fun way to interact with the text and open students up to complex problem solving. · Vocabulary knowledge # Teachers should always review new vocabulary prior to reading text. It is a great idea to define the word for your students, then ask them if they know any words that remind them of the new word. This helps students make personal connections with new vocabulary, ensuring they will remember it in context. # Keeping word walls in your classroom is a great way to immerse students in new vocabulary. For ELLs, make sure the words also have their first language listed and/or a picture to help with retrieval. · Reading content area texts # Content area texts are usually not interesting to students. To avoid losing your students and missing standards, try to find story books that also relate to the topic. It will present the information in a different way that is more entertaining. # Before reading, take time to let children preview the informative text. Review new vocabulary (repeating the same procedure above) and let students make predictions about what they will be reading. Engaging students before reading is setting them up for success.